Weeknight Gluten Free Review and Giveaway

Weeknight Gluten Free: Simple, Healthy Meals for Every Night of the Week by Kristine Kidd is a Williams Sonoma cookbook that I want to share with you today.

What I Like

One of the things I like most about this cookbook is that it’s full of large color photos. If you’re a visual person who doesn’t like to make a recipe that you can’t visualize, you’ll like enjoy this book.

The cookbook contains a wide variety of recipes with chapters covering almost meatless, seafood, poultry, meat, and desserts. It also covers tips for living gluten free.

Quite a few of the recipes have an international flare, such as sesame-ginger noodles with chicken and vegetables, Asian-flavored chicken with shiitakes and bok choy, easy mu shu pork, and Vietnamese beef and noodle soup.

There are also plenty of more traditional American recipes such as sautéed chicken tenders with peas and mint, oven “fried” chicken with baby spinach salad, and grilled steak and fingerlings with herb salad.

Another thing I like about this cookbook is that most of the recipes are naturally gluten free and do not use specialty gluten-free ingredients. There are a few, particularly those that involve pasta, but even the desserts are fruit based and don’t rely on gluten-free flour.

What I Don’t Like

The photos. I know, I said that’s one of the things I like, but photos can also be a hindrance for me personally. Sometimes they just look too nice. They don’t look like weeknight meals. I see all those nicely styled dishes and think, “I could never make that,” or “my family would never eat that.”

That was my initial reaction, but after taking a closer look, I realized that most of the recipes are not difficult to make, and my family would eat many of them.

The variety of recipes. I know, I said that was something I liked, but I said that because I think variety is important in a cookbook since we should eat a variety of foods, and many people like a variety of foods.

However, my family is pretty narrow in what they like, and except for Italian or Mexican, my husband does not care for international foods. So for me, at first look I thought there were a lot of recipes I couldn’t use. On second glance, though, I realized there is plenty to choose from, and there are a number of recipes my husband would like. Some of the recipes I would probably tweak to suit our tastes, but that’s not uncommon.

Final Thoughts

You can purchase Weeknight Gluten Free on Amazon. The pre-order price (release date is April 16) is $16.92 which is a good price for a hardback book with large color photos. You can also take a look inside the book on Amazon. Take a look at the index if you want to get a better idea of the recipes in the book.

I think this book will help spice up anyone’s weekly menu, but if you’re unsure, try finding it in a library or look through it in a bookstore.

The Giveaway

One winner will receive a copy of Weeknight Gluten Free. Here’s the details.

This giveaway is limited to U.S. residents 18 and older.

One entry per person

Enter by leaving a comment on this post.

The giveaway begins April 5, 2013 and ends on April 10, 2013 at 11:00 pm eastern time.

No purchase is necessary. Odds of winning are based on the number of entries. The winners will be randomly chosen and will be contacted by email. The winners will have 24 hours to respond. If the winner does not respond, a new winner will be randomly chosen.

Disclaimer: I was provided with a free copy of the cookbook to review, but was not paid to write this review. The opinions in this post are my own.

It is challenging to plan ‘weeknight’ meals when everyone in the household works and trying to have GF new ideas. I’m the main cook (and the one needing to be GF) and would love new recipes to serve my family – especially with a cultural flair/flavor.

Everyday I meet someone new who has been diagnoised with gluten intolerance or celiac and they are so upset because they feel like they can’t eat anything. This cookbook would be great for me to help share the information and encourage them.

I discovered I am gluten intolerant about 1 year ago and it’s been a fun journey over the past year discovering new recipes that are not only safe for me but appealing to my husband too! I would love to discover new recipes for weeknight meals.

The cookbook sounds great! I eat mostly international and Asian food even tho I was raised eating basic bland American food. I hope I win this book! I struggle to cook things in the evening that are good reheated the next few days at work – some things like baked fish is not good reheated.

This would be the perfect kick start to my lifestyle CHANGE!!! I have figured out that GF is the way of life I need to live for my body and my health, but I am SO clueless in the kitchen. I’d love to be able to really dig into this book an get a great start on a healthy new me. 🙂

With 3 kids going different directions and 2 parents working different shifts, it is difficult to provide a quick, gluten-free meal everyday of the week! New ideas that are quick, healthy, and things my kids and spouse will eat are always on my “to-find” list. I would LOVE to get my hands on this book!

I would love to win this book. Both my 11 year old son and I have recently been diagnosed with gluten intolerance and I have been trying to incorporate more gf dishes at home that the entire family will enjoy. This would be a huuuuuge help!
Ana

Need to win this cookbook!!! I am gluten free and have to cook for 2 of the pickiest people in the world!!! I need some awesome recipes to help before I go crazy. Really, I’ve already pulled lots of hair from my own head out. 🙂 Pick me 🙂

I am new to being gluten free. For the last 6 months, I have been trying different things. Some I like and some I don’t. Still trying to learn to adapt my traditional recipes to gluten free. Would love this cook book.

I’ve just recently had to start a gluten free diet (never too old to develop food sensitivities, apparently!) and I’ve been searching for gluten free recipes high and low! This cookbook sounds great. Love the variety!

Gluten free is the way to go even if you are not sensitive at the moment it could happen anytime as it did for me. I have not invested in a cookbook as of yet but I feel it will help me and my journey to a wheat free life!

I’d love a copy! I love my thrift store find – a never-used William Sonoma bread machine 🙂 We called them, and they even mailed us the manual, despite us telling them we got the machine at a thrift store and not at William Sonoma!

It would be fabulous to win this cookbook! I find it challenging to figure out what to make for dinner. Sometimes all I need is a recipe or suggestion…on many occasions one ingredient contains gluten, such as cream of chicken soup. Our family lives on a tight budget so health food store prices are out of the question. Many of our ‘old favorites’ are out of the question….so new ideas would be wonderful. I would share with 6 other GF families – what fun!

Thank you for this wonderful contest. I’m always looking for new and tasty gf recipes. And I love the books that have beautiful pictures of the meals. It makes me more inclined to make them (although they rarely ever look as good as they do in the book lol).

It would be great to have a gluten free cookbook. I have not had a chance to purchase one since being diagnosed with wheat allergy. I have had to purchase so many different and expensive food and ingredients. I have only checked out books at the local library. It would be great to have a gluten free cookbook. Thanks for the giveaway.

This book is right up my alley! Simple and Healthy is just right for this family!
Since switching to gluten free for one family member we have all reaped the benefits of GF cooking. The kiddos even love to help out when it is simple! 🙂

I love to cook and always looking for easy gluten free recipes as I work 2 part times jobs, am a mother, grandmother and go to college full-time. I am the only gf person in our house but I do most of the cooking so the family eats gf 90% of the time and like most of the new recipes as much as I do. I am fortunate that my family doesn’t mind being the guinea pigs when trying a new recipe. I would love to have a gluten free cookbook of my own to have new recipes to try!

What a beautiful cover! I’m so thankful that you reviewed this cookbook, it sounds like a good one to get. My 10 yo DD has to go off of gluten and citrus, waiting to see about dairy, so having some new delicious dinners would be a bonus for my family right now.
Thanks for posting!

Would love to win this cookbook. My husband is Gluten intolerant and I’m always looking for more gluten free recipes. I like the Gluten Free Homemaker website and look at it almost every day. I have found some very good recipes on the site.